


A hell of a day

by Laramie



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 18:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9197315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie
Summary: It starts with a broken washing machine, and goes downhill from there.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oswin42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oswin42/gifts).



> Somehow a 1 word prompt turned into a 4,000 word fic. I'm sorry this is a few days late @firstofficermagic - hope you enjoy it!

The washing machine was making a strange noise.

Well, it had always made a strange noise - Martin had got it off Freecycle, and the previous owners had warned him frankly that it was probably broken (Martin had pretended he just wanted to use it for parts).

Anyway, the point was, it was now making a _new_ strange noise. Martin stood in his socks in the shared kitchen, arms folded, and watched his clothes tumbling round and round, accompanied by an alarming screeching sound.

Tim, a stocky second year agriculture student of barely five foot four, entered the room. He put a precariously-balanced pile of plates and mugs next to the sink, then joined Martin in front of the washing machine, crossing his arms.

"It's knackered," said Tim matter-of-factly.

"Yes…" agreed Martin gloomily.

Screeeeeeeeech, went the washing machine.

Eva walked in, wincing at the machine. A hissing noise joined the general cacophony as she flicked the kettle on, ready to make coffee. After a moment, she came to frown at the big metal box with them. She folded her arms as she regarded it rattling under the counter, oblivious to their scrutiny.

"We need a new washing machine," Eva said flatly.

The other two murmured their agreement in unison.

Just as Eva began to say: "I wonder if the agents -" there was an almighty BANG which seemed to fill the whole house. They all jumped, Martin screamed, Tim yelped, and Eva shielded her face with her arms.

A shocked silence descended on the kitchen like a second layer of dust. Too quiet - the kettle had stopped. A waft of acrid smoke drifted out from behind the washing machine. It must have blown the main fuse.

"We need a new washing machine," Eva said again, with rather more urgency in her voice.

"Definitely," Tim agreed fervently.

Martin was too busy working out what on earth he was going to do to say anything. The majority of his clothes were in that machine, though luckily his uniform was hanging ready in his wardrobe. He was going to have to pay for a laundrette now.

Setting his jaw, because he didn't want the students to see his frustration, Martin plodded over and began pulling his clothes out of the machine. While he was stuffing them all into an old Lidl bag, Eva and Tim drifted away to figure out the fuse box (or possibly just call the landlords).

Martin paused and briefly closed his eyes. The woman that Martin had helped move out of her ex-girlfriend's flat the day before yesterday had given him a large tip because she was so pleased with the service, but most of that had been swallowed up by a birthday present for his sister and a marginally indulgent food shop. Stupid, Martin thought. He should have known that something would go wrong. It had just been such  a long time since he'd had a piece of gingerbread. Hopefully he would be able to fix the washing machine or get a new one off Freecycle before he had to pay for a laundrette again.

Picking up his clothes, Martin stumped out of the house.

* * *

One had to pay for parking in the town centre, so Martin left the van outside Parkside Terrace and walked the twenty minutes to the laundrette. The handle of the plastic carrier bag with its heavy burden of wet clothes dug into his palm, and he shifted it repeatedly from hand to hand. He had spent a little while on the washing machine, and was frustrated that it had defeated him. Dad, he thought, with a rare burst of pride for his dead father, would have fixed it.

Martin walked into the laundrette, anxiously fingering the coins in his pocket. He piled the clothes into a machine, grimacing at how wet and cold they were on his hands.

It was only when he opened the drawer to pour in his washing liquid that Martin realised his mistake: he had forgotten to bring laundry liquid. Chewing his lip, Martin counted up the coins he had brought with him; if he went for the shorter, cheaper wash, he could nip next door to the pound shop for laundry liquid.

And so this was what he did, sniffing each one to find the bottle that smelled nicest. He care about such things. His cash situation gave him few choices, but the difference between Ocean Breeze and Floral Dream was one of them. He liked to smell good.

Returning to the laundrette (and glancing distastefully at the clouds gathering above), Martin went back to the washing machine he had left his clothes in. His stomach curdled. He was sure it was this one he had started using, and yet it was empty. His memory must be fault. And yet, the machines to left and right were empty too.

Martin glanced around. The only other person in the glass-fronted laundrette was a plump, stunningly beautiful blonde woman with big round glasses flicking through a newspaper. Oh, but Martin was terrible with beautiful women. He went completely to pieces. It was as though his brain took a holiday and left his mouth to fend for itself - which it didn't.

Swallowing, Martin tried to get a grip on himself. Captains didn't get tongue-tied just because of a beautiful woman.

"Excuse me?"

The women looked up and gave a broad smile, which did nothing to lessen Martin's nerves. "Hello," she said brightly. "Y'alright?"

"I-I-I left my clothes in here earlier. Not in _here,_ obviously, not just on the floor -" he should never attempt jokes - "I-In a machine. And they seem to have gone. I just wondered if you - er - saw anything?"

The woman grimaced briefly. "That was yours? Someone came in and emptied it a few minutes ago." She indicated the newspaper as she went on: "I wasn't really paying attention; just assumed it was theirs."

Martin felt his face burning, though he wasn't quite sure if he was embarrassed or angry - both, probably. Why, oh why, had he left his clothes unattended? A mental catalogue of his remaining clothes was somewhat lacking: his uniform, the clothes he had on now, two pairs of tracksuit bottoms that he hated (they had been a present from Caitlyn one Christmas) and a t-shirt that was far too small for him. He had a feeling a student had moved out and left the latter, and he had shoved it in his wardrobe for lack of any better idea what to do with it.

It was going to be so expensive to buy a whole new set of clothes, even from the charity shops he usually used. Where on earth was he going to find the money?

* * *

They were flying to San Francisco that afternoon, with a planeful of men going to a sort of gay stag do. Martin wasn't quite sure how that worked - did each of the partners have a stag do each, or were both sides of the couple going to be travelling with them today? Regardless, stag dos were always a drunken nightmare, and Martin doubted that would change just because the stags weren't straight.

It was therefore with somewhat muted enthusiasm that Martin pulled on his uniform in his attic bedroom, wishing he could change his socks to a less holey pair. At least he'd have his shoes on over the top, but it was always very distracting to feel his bare toe poking out against the inside of his shoe.

Martin went out to his van an hour before he really needed to, just in case there was traffic or any problems with the paperwork. He checked for his ID card after locking his bedroom door and testing the handle three time. When he went downstairs, Eva gave him a chocolate mini roll. The distraction meant that he had to run up two flights of stairs to check his bedroom door again. It was locked. ID card in bag. The front door clicked locked itself. (Pushed three times to check.) ID card in bag. Down the weed-filled concrete path to the kerbside, all the while worrying about his clothing situation. He would have to hand-wash daily in the sink for a while, until he could manage to buy some more clothes.

ID card in bag. Unlock the van. Climb in, bag in passenger seat, door closed - ID card still in bag. Excellent; ready to go.

At least, Martin was ready to go. The van, however, seemed to have other ideas. Although the engine roared comfortingly to life, when Martin pulled away it felt distinctly _odd._ The steering felt too heavy.

Martin got a sinking sensation in his stomach. He had a nasty feeling he knew exactly what was wrong with the van. Pulling the key out of the ignition, Martin stumbled out of the van door to check whether it was true that he had a flat tyre.

It was.

In fact, _both_ of his front tyres had somehow given up the ghost at the same time. How was this fair?! Not only had all his clothes been stolen, but now TWO tyres had gone flat! He only had one spare! Fury buzzed in his head, hot black, obscuring his vision. He kicked the driver's side front wheel. It hurt enough to make his anger drain away, replaced by sadness. New tyres would be much, much more expensive than a new set of clothes, and how was he going to earn without his van? Even if he didn't have flights taking up valuable -

Oh god. Flights. How was he going to get to the airfield today? A taxi was financially out of the question. The bus route meant going right into town and out again, with no decent connections. Douglas…

He couldn't ask Douglas. It was too embarrassing to contemplate.

A glance at his watch had Martin panicking. He didn't have long to make a decision.

The only option left was foot-power.

Retrieving his flight bag from the van, Martin shouldered it, shelved his worries, and bravely took the first step of the five-mile walk ahead of him.

* * *

Impressively, Martin arrived on the airfield only 15 minutes late. However, that was the only thing about his arrival that could be called impressive. He dove into the Portakabin like a man pursued by bears, slammed the door behind him and leaned back against it.

Three faces looked back at him, one furious (Carolyn), one wryly amused (Douglas - of course), and one with that mixture of enthusiasm and confusion that only Arthur could manage to display.

"Goodness," Douglas said after a moment. "Have you decided to start training for the marathon, Martin? Or are you hoping to put the ground crew out of a job with those glowing red cheeks?"

"Like Rudolf!" put in Arthur.

"Yes, good old Rudolf, most enthusiastic of the ground crew. Poor thing gets teased terribly, but then it's a mystery why he's on the ground crew at all, really; after all, he can _fly_."

Martin glared and shivered, waiting for them to be done and for his core temperature to improve a bit before he attempted to claw back some of his dignity. "The van broke down," he forced out through clenched teeth.

"But why didn't you wear a coat?" asked Arthur.

"I didn't know it was going to _pour_ it down, did I?" Martin snapped, regretting it at once.

"Oh, really?" said Douglas coolly. "And here I was thinking you were planning to enter that hairstyle in the hairdresser of the year competition, style name: rat tails."

Martin opened his mouth in the hope that a clever retort (or, really, any retort at all) would come to him in time, but before he managed it Carolyn cut in.

"If you've all quite finished, you are fifteen minutes late, Martin. So get out of those wet clothes and put on the spare uniform I know full well you keep in your locker. Douglas has done the paperwork, the passengers are, mercifully, not yet here, and expect you to be ready to fly in three minutes or less."

Martin hadn't exactly expected her to be pleased about his tardiness, so he took it as a mark of her grudging sympathy that she said no more about it.

He must look desperate indeed.

Martin's shoes went squelch, squelch, squelch as he crossed to his locker at the back of the Portakabin - though "locker" was something of a misnomer, since the actual lock mechanisms had been cut out before Martin had ever joined MJN. He suspected Carolyn had bought them that way, on-the-cheap.

"And make sure you change your shoes whilst you're there," Carolyn added.

 _I don't have any_ , was Martin's first thought. _I can't let them see these socks,_ was his second. "Oh, these will be - These will be fine," he said, trying to sound breezy.

"Martin, I'm not letting _any_ one on my aircraft who sounds like Jeremy Fisher. Change those shoes or stay on the ground."

"Ooh - !" started Douglas, his eyes lighting up as though a wonderful idea had just occurred to him.

"Not you, Mr McGregor," Carolyn cut him off before he could go any further.

"I - I don't keep spare shoes here," Martin said, which was true - he didn't have any other shoes, so he couldn't keep them anywhere.

"You can borrow mine, Skip!" Arthur burst out excitedly. "You're only one size smaller, I remember you saying when you and Douglas had that bet."

"Ah, what a day that was," Douglas reminisced, and Martin tried not to think about the consequences of his losing that particular bet.

"I don't need to borrow your shoes, Arthur, it's fine. I can wear these, it's not a problem." He REALLY didn't want his work colleagues seeing his ratty socks.

"Douglas, shut up. Arthur, shut up. Martin, shut up and put Arthur's shoes on."

"I can't wear _those_ , they're so -"

"It's okay, Skip, the spare ones are just plain," Arthur said cheerfully.

"But -"

"Now!" bellowed Carolyn.

Martin spluttered, but gave up. It wasn't like he had much dignity with these people anyway. Still, it would have been nice to hold onto this tiny scrap. Martin's cheeks burned as he toed off his sodden shoes.

The others went awkwardly quiet. Arthur handed over a pair of plain black shoes.

"Claustrophobic feet?" Douglas teased. He spoke without his usual bite, but it cut Martin deep all the same, and he snapped.

"This is my last pair of socks, alright?! My washing machine broke, I took my washing to the laundrette and someone stole all my clothes and now the van is broken, which, by the way, is why I walked here and arrived late and completely soaked! So there you go, have a good laugh at pathetic old Martin in his last pair of holey socks!"

He stared at them all fiercely.

"Nobody's laughing," Douglas said levelly.

"Let me get changed, then," Martin snapped back, too keyed up to acknowledge the truth of Douglas's remark.

With varying degrees of exasperated eye-rolling, the others turned their backs for Martin to perform a quick-change that even Superman would have been proud of. He could hear Carolyn and Arthur whispering to each other. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard Carolyn whisper before.

"Right!" Carolyn cried, once Martin had told them he was finished. "Let's get on that plane and get ready to go."

"Come on, Arthur," Martin chivvied Arthur, who had made no move to join them.

"Oh, I don't think I'll go after all, Skip."

"What? But you always come to San Francisco. You like adding the crossings to your rainbow photos collection."

"I-I have to - go to a pantomime." Arthur's face was turning purple. He was clearly lying.

Maybe he just didn't want to spend time with a loser like Martin. There must be a limit even to Arthur's acceptance of people.

"You went to a pantomime last Wednesday," Martin remembered suddenly.

Arthur opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Carolyn saying briskly: "Come along, pilots, we don't have all day!"

* * *

The passengers were just as raucous as Martin had expected. All of them were excited. Many were already tipsy on airport booze. Several were singing, the grooms were snogging and one passenger gave Martin a lascivious look up and down when he passed through to go to the toilet. In the oldest tradition of Martin, he turned bright red and took on the appearance of a deer paralysed by headlights.

The young man had long blonde hair and turned to wink on Martin's way back to the flight deck. Martin stumbled through the door, annoyed that the first person to show interest in him for literal years was someone he couldn't be interested in in return.

Douglas glanced at Martin as he sat down. "You alright?" he asked casually.

"Fine," Martin grunted. "Who's in 4A?"

Douglas cast his eye over the passenger list. "Ryan Samuels."

"Hm."

"Why?"

"He keeps _looking_ at me," Martin burst out.

"Oh," Douglas replied, and then repeated it, drawing the word out: "Ohh…"

Martin ignored him, his mind drifting back to the problem of what to do about his van.

"You know… I wouldn't mind," Douglas said after a moment.

Abruptly pulled out of considering a payday loan, Martin looked at Douglas, confused and irritated. "What; wouldn't mind what?"

"Well, if you were… interested in this man." He half-laughed as he went on: "You've certainly had no luck with -"

"Douglas! Just because I'm terrible with women doesn't mean I'm gay!"

"No, no, of course not. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying… if you were…"

"If you start singing Avenue Q at me, I'll push you off that chair," Martin said flatly, watching the sun glittering on the Atlantic Ocean.

For a few seconds, Douglas was silent. Then he said: "You wouldn't be the first. You wouldn't even be the first on this flight deck."

Martin detected the vulnerable edge to Douglas's nonchalance, something he had not been able to do until very recently. "You?" he said. "But you've had _three_ wives."

"I didn't say I _only_ interested in men," Douglas pointed out. "And I've never wanted to marry one. But I'm… bisexual, actually."

"Oh, right," Martin said, digesting this. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Well. Good."

* * *

The stopover passed without incident - well, without any incident that was without the bounds of usual MJN problems. The hotel was awful, but when wasn't it? Martin could only dream of one day finding a proper job with an airline that actually paid him and gave him a hotel room to stay in without a dead mouse in the corner and perhaps even without having to share it with his co-pilot. Not that Douglas was around much. He went out before dinner and Martin saw no more of him until the next morning.

The return flight was the following evening, so Martin spent the day wandering around San Francisco dodging the rain. Back on the plane, Douglas was even more unbearably smug than usual. It made Martin tense and irritable, and it was exhausting.

By the time they landed, all Martin wanted was to go home and sleep.

"Douglas," he began as they concluded the post-landing checks, along with a few other checks Carolyn had insisted upon. "I-I just wondered… Well, frankly, I've had a hell of a few days and I wondered, just this once - it's your responsibility too - would you do the paperwork today?"

"Hmm," Douglas replied. "And what are you offering in return?"

"You're surely not asking me to pay you back for finally doing a part of your job that you're _supposed to do_ , that I've been doing on my own ever since I arrived?"

"And yet…"

"I'm not giving you anything."

"Then I'm not doing the paperwork," Douglas said, almost pleasantly.

"Douglas, _please_ ," said Martin, hating the desperate note in his voice. "I just want to go home…"

"As do I. I do not want to sit in a leaky Portakabin doing boring, pointless paperwork that nobody ever looks at."

"It's still a _legal requirement_! You can't just not do it because it's boring!" Martin burst out, his voice clipped with frustration.

"I really can, though." Douglas stood up and pulled his coat on. "I do have to pick something up in the Portakabin, however. Come along, Captain."

Tears burned in Martin's eyes at the realisation that Douglas was not even willing to do him this small favour. He had thought they had been getting along much better recently. Douglas's teasing, which had once held an edge of dislike, now seemed warmer - fond, even, sometimes. Walking beside Douglas, Martin turned his head away until he had forced his eyes into dryness. He must have misread things. He and Douglas weren't becoming friends at all. Everyone at MJN found him just as dislikeable and ridiculous as they always had.

At the Portakabin, Douglas dropped back half a step to let Martin go first.

"After you, Captain."

Martin pushed open the door with the little shove that was always needed near the lock to get it open.

"SURPRISE!!!" bellowed Arthur, joined less loudly by Carolyn. Carolyn was smiling, Arthur was beaming, and when Martin glanced at Douglas, he was smirking.

The entire room was covered in socks. Long socks, trainer socks, brightly coloured, diamond-patterned, covered in teacups or unicorns or dinosaurs, Star Wars-themed, striped, spotted or zigzagged, ones that lit up or had 3D animal faced sticking out of the ankle. There were also strings and strings of fairy lights crisscrossing the ceiling and wound around chairs, from which the vast array of socks hung as though on a washing line, or were themselves simply draped over the locker doors and filing cabinets.

"Er… What's… What's happening here?" Martin at last managed to ask.

"We bought you some new socks, Skip!" Arthur all but shouted. "So you don't have to wear holey ones any more!"

Martin felt teary again, but this time there was no chance of stopping or hiding it. "So is this why you wouldn't do the paperwork?" he asked, turning to Douglas.

"Yes. Well, mostly."

"And is this why you didn't come on the flight?" Martin added to Arthur.

"Yes! I had to go to the shops. And Douglas bought you some really good ones from San Francisco, too!" Arthur looked like he might take off with simple glee.

"And that's why we had to keep you on the plane long enough to get them out of the hold and into the office," put in Carolyn, whose smile was less sharky than usual.

"Oh," said Martin quietly, his voice failing him as he realised just how much effort the three of them had gone to for his sake.

Douglas grinned and ruffled Martin's hair, even though he knew Martin hated it. But somehow, this time, Martin didn't mind it too much.

"Come on, Martin, try some on before Arthur explodes," Carolyn pushed. It looked like a genuine possibility from the colour of Arthur's face.

And so Martin plopped down onto a chair and pulled on a pair of bright pink socks covered in cartoon pigs. They were wonderfully warm.

 


End file.
